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Food Nemisis/nemises ?

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby miss mouse » Sat May 09, 2020 6:34 am

Pepper Pig wrote:they just sit there getting harder and harder and I keep wondering if I’m going to have the strength to take the peel off.


Do they get tougher when kept? Is that the skin or skin and flesh?

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby Pepper Pig » Sat May 09, 2020 7:32 am

I have no idea actually because I never get round to cutting them up. :oops:

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby strictlysalsaclare » Sat May 09, 2020 10:35 am

PatsyMFagan wrote:Not quite the word I am looking for, but I think you probably get the gist.

It's Fresh Tuna and Aubergine for me. I buy them (not at the same time) with the intention of making something tasty, but then I never know what to make and end up throwing stuff away. I currently have an aubergine that I don't think will last much longer.

Is it just me?


Oh to be able to get fresh aubergine at the moment...both Mr Strictly and I are getting withdrawal symptoms. When they do eventually appear in the shops I shall celebrate by making a ratatouille or whatever!

I'm not sure if I have a food nemesis these days though

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby Stokey Sue » Sat May 09, 2020 10:54 am

I did that with an onion squash I intended to use for soup - eventually

The mice got to it first, sunk a shaft into it and mined the seeds which they ate

Annoying but you have to admire a rodent that having lived for generations behind the Victorian skirting boards of next door still knows the most efficient way of dealing with a natural food source

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby mistakened » Sat May 09, 2020 11:12 am

My nemesis is packs of ready to cook pasta, usually ravioli. I buy it but never get round to using it
strictlysalsaclare wrote:Oh to be able to get fresh aubergine at the moment...both Mr Strictly and I are getting withdrawal symptoms. When they do eventually appear in the shops I shall celebrate by making a ratatouille or whatever!
How about Imam Bayildi or the give it is English name Stuffed Aubergine

Moira

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby spangle » Sat May 09, 2020 11:59 am

This is one of those threads where I keep going "oh yes, that too..." - filled pasta is another of those things I look forward to but just sits in the fridge for weeks, and definitely the squash thing! I have a butternut squash that's been sitting on the worktop for I don't know how long. I forget it's there. I buy them because they keep well so when I run out of food I'll still have something nutritious, but I've never run out of food. They do deteriorate a bit, after several months when you crack them open with a pickaxe or similar kitchen implement they can be quite dry and spongy, but there's usually still enough edible material to make a good meal.

I have two lovely squeaky aubergines at the moment from a greengrocer stall in town, and Moira's post has reminded me about imam bayidli - I think that might be exactly the thing to save them from becoming food nemesis - thank you :)

Also have to add - I hate wasting food so all these confessions of mine are written from a place of shame :oops:

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby liketocook » Sat May 09, 2020 12:07 pm

Pepper Pig wrote:It’s a long standing joke in my family that there is always a large butternut squash propping up something or other in my kitchen. I buy them with all sorts of culinary ideas and then they just sit there getting harder and harder and I keep wondering if I’m going to have the strength to take the peel off. 6 months later I admit defeat and consign them to the compost. Next day I buy another.

I have a pumpkin on my counter that's been there since Hallowe'en :lol:

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby Earthmaiden » Sat May 09, 2020 1:29 pm

I haven't had any problems with aubergines since I discovered you can bake them whole in the oven. If I've had any hanging about too long I just do that (prick the skin first!) when I'm cooking something else and the resulting pulp can be turned into something, added to something then and there or frozen.

I love the way that squashes keep for so long. After a couple of months of big plans mine usually end up being cut up with a big saw-shaped knife, baked in chunks drizzled with honey and walnuts and eaten like sweets - then soup in the nutribullet with Waitrose dried fried onions and cream when I tire of that.

There's a bag of rose petal infused sugar in my cupboard still patiently waiting for that special occasion after a good many years :lol:.

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby Pampy » Sat May 09, 2020 1:32 pm

I have a Christmas pudding that i bought in 2010. It gets taken out of the cupboard every year and then put back as I'm always too full to eat it.

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby strictlysalsaclare » Sat May 09, 2020 2:04 pm

mistakened wrote:My nemesis is packs of ready to cook pasta, usually ravioli. I buy it but never get round to using it
strictlysalsaclare wrote:Oh to be able to get fresh aubergine at the moment...both Mr Strictly and I are getting withdrawal symptoms. When they do eventually appear in the shops I shall celebrate by making a ratatouille or whatever!
How about Imam Bayildi or the give it is English name Stuffed Aubergine

Moira


Thanks for the idea Moira, but if they are that scarce I would want to get as many meals out of one as I can, which I usually manage to do quite successfully!

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby strictlysalsaclare » Sat May 09, 2020 2:06 pm

Pampy wrote:I have a Christmas pudding that i bought in 2010. It gets taken out of the cupboard every year and then put back as I'm always too full to eat it.


that's the problem I have with Christmas pud. I used to prefer it after some of the light leftover style meals we had over Christmas. However, Mr Strictly is not a fan of it so we don;t bother buying it any more. We both love panettone, but I wish my diabetes did!

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby Pampy » Sat May 09, 2020 2:25 pm

I'm diabetic but I mainly ignore it at Christmas and give it up for Lent! :D

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby Badger's Mate » Sat May 09, 2020 3:23 pm

I get very cross with myself if anything goes to waste here. Recently I forgot a jug of gravy that got pushed to the back of the fridge. By the time I found it again it was fizzy, which even I wouldn't touch. I guess my nemesis is the back of the fridge rather than particular foodstuffs.

The current circumstances have been very good for using up long-stored items. :D

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby ZeroCook » Sat May 09, 2020 5:10 pm

I would call them uncooked outtakes. I was thinking of starting a thread but the other way around as it were - what to do with or how to store / preserve the bits and bobs that remain or hang around, sometimes not pretty but still good  as it's a perennial problem.

My go to solution for unused fresh ingredients that are not eaten raw is to freeze or blanch/part cook as we have quite a bit of freezer space but even so a lot of the frozen outtakes often still hang around ages and ages but at least haven't gone off.

If something will freeze I try to be disciplined and freeze just after  buying but often don't. So sad to toss what was once good.

Tossing fresh tuna is very sad. I'd have briefly seared or poached and frozen for later.  Or thrown as is into freezer if it wasn't off.

Made khao soi last night and needed a few squeezes of lime juice and dipped into the  bag of limes I'd bought and put in the fridge veg drawer still had a lot left and realised that as they're used for juice and skin freezing them would would be fine. Ditto things that I need often for cooking but dont use a lot of at once.   Fresh chilies, ginger, etc.

Sakkarin,  braised celery is lovely - as are all braised veg in my book -  or blanched and frozen for later use in dishes that need fried chopped celery /onions/carrots at the first stage. And celery in any edible state is great in brothy vegetable soups.

Re bags of peppers- I was very on the ball last time I bought a bag of green peppers and I blanched them whole and threw onto the freezer.

Avocados - yep, been there done that. It's  sad. No solution other than  to buy unripe and fridge as soon as bought as when still hard or very firm. Ripen one by one as needed. Unripe avocados will not ripen further until taken out to room temp.

BM - with you on back of fridge shelf lurkers.

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby Renee » Sat May 09, 2020 5:12 pm

Pepper Pig, I bought a set of Oxo peelers and one of them is excellent for peeling butternut squash, nectarines, tomatoes.

https://www.johnlewis.com/oxo-peelers-s ... &gclsrc=ds

Oops, just realised that your message was at the bottom of the first page.

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby Pepper Pig » Sat May 09, 2020 5:56 pm

Thanks Renee. I actually have one of those but have never thought of using it on BNS. Will have a go.

Maybe.

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby PatsyMFagan » Sat May 09, 2020 7:05 pm

Well, at least I have ended up with some ideas of what to do with the aubergine .. ;) :thumbsup :lol:

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby Stokey Sue » Sat May 09, 2020 8:59 pm

I do it with non food too - the number of times I have bought nice hand cream and left it near the taps, then months later realise the tube is still nearly full, but should have lasted 6 weeks or less, and it's no wonder my hands are still rough

Having said which I appear to be going through my tube of O'Keefe's Working Hands at a rate of knots, hope by nails benefit

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby karadekoolaid » Sun May 10, 2020 1:40 am

Avocados - yep, been there done that. It's sad. No solution other than to buy unripe and fridge as soon as bought as when still hard or very firm. Ripen one by one as needed. Unripe avocados will not ripen further until taken out to room temp.


NEVER,ever put a green avocado in the fridge. It will never ripen.
Avocado is a wierd fruit. It doesn´t ripen on the tree, like all the others; it ripens when it drops.
I buy avocados when they are hard, and leave them in the fruit bowl. When the fruit "gives" to the touch, it´s just about ready. Give it another 24 hours.
Cut it in half horizontally, twist and open. If you can´t manage a whole avocado at one sitting, it doesn´t matter. You can keep it in the fridge.
Wéve probably got about 8-10 varieties of avocado over here in Venezuela. Some weigh 1 - 1.5 kgs. You´ve never seen them because the economic emphasis in the past 50 years has been on bloody petrol, not on agriculture.
There are also some small, almost round avocados which grow near the coast. The skin AND the pulp are thin; but when they´re ripe, the nutty, buttery flavour is better than anything I have ever tasted.

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Re: Food Nemisis/nemises ?

Postby KeenCook2 » Sun May 10, 2020 4:37 pm

karadekoolaid wrote:
Avocados - yep, been there done that. It's sad. No solution other than to buy unripe and fridge as soon as bought as when still hard or very firm. Ripen one by one as needed. Unripe avocados will not ripen further until taken out to room temp.


Avocado is a wierd fruit. It doesn´t ripen on the tree, like all the others; it ripens when it drops.
I buy avocados when they are hard, and leave them in the fruit bowl. When the fruit "gives" to the touch, it´s just about ready. Give it another 24 hours.


That's useful advice. We've had variable success with buying "ripen at home" avos and either putting them in a brown paper bag with another, ripe fruit, or just leaving them in the fruit bowl to ripen. Interesting to hear that's it a good idea to wait another 24 hrs after they're just beginning to give. We spectacularly failed with the last one we thought was ready! We had evidently left the one before too long as it went sort of "hollow" at the stem end and quite a lot of it was black and inedible.

I remember we had a thread on Wildies that introduced me to frozen avos. I've seen them since then but not tried them yet.

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